Professional Services / Big-4 Audit & Advisory · IT Asset Management Platform Implementation · KPMG US
IT Asset Management Platform Implementation Project Manager Simulation — KPMG US
Lead a regulator-mandated IT Asset Management platform implementation at KPMG US. PCAOB inspections flagged ITGC weaknesses around software access and asset controls. Q1 audit cycle starts Day 27 and the date cannot move. Inherit a project mid-flight from a burned-out predecessor, manage a SoftwareONE vendor with open SOW items, weather a Microsoft software audit notice on Day 3, surface a 40% Adobe license shortfall mid-discovery, and decide how to play an $800K Microsoft true-up settlement at the SteerCo. The audit committee is watching. Gain hands-on project management experience over 27 days of real decisions, stakeholders, and PMO deliverables — no prior experience required.
The scenario
KPMG US — one of the Big-4 audit and advisory firms, ~36,000 US partners and professionals, $11B+ in US revenue — has commissioned an IT Asset Management platform implementation to remediate ITGC findings raised in recent PCAOB inspections. The PCAOB flagged weaknesses across two control objectives the firm cannot afford to leave open: software entitlement and license-position monitoring, and provisioning/de-provisioning of privileged access tied to software assets. The SEC is watching, the firm's Audit Quality Office is watching, and Q1 audit fieldwork — which uses ITAM data feeds as evidence — starts on Day 27. The deadline is non-negotiable. The project deploys ServiceNow ITAM Pro (Software Asset Management module, Hardware Asset Management module, integrated CMDB enrichment) layered on top of Flexera One for the heavy-lift normalization, fingerprinting, and Effective License Position (ELP) calculation. SoftwareONE is the systems integrator under a fixed-price SOW. The ServiceNow Professional Services architecture team supports the integration design. The internal SAM Center of Excellence — five people running KPMG's manual SAM function on spreadsheets for six years — becomes the operating team after go-live. You are inheriting the project mid-flight. The predecessor PM resigned three weeks ago after burning out. The SoftwareONE SOW has open scope items the predecessor never closed. The day before you started, Microsoft sent KPMG a formal software audit notice — a Microsoft true-up review with a 90-day clock. Rachel Goldberg, the firm's Audit Quality Partner, has a status check scheduled for Day 4. Atif Zaim, the CIO, expects the same level of operational rigor he ran at his previous firm. Everyone wants this project to disappear quietly into the firm's Q1 audit-quality narrative. Your job is to make that happen.
What you'll do as the project manager
- →Deploy ServiceNow ITAM Pro and Flexera One with a discovered baseline of all in-scope hardware and software assets across the US firm before Q1 audit fieldwork begins on Day 27
- →Produce an Effective License Position (ELP) for the firm's top 10 software publishers — Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, IBM, Salesforce, ServiceNow, AWS, Atlassian, Workday, and the firm's audit toolset — with documented control evidence
- →Establish operating-effectiveness evidence for two ITGC control objectives: software entitlement monitoring and provisioning/de-provisioning of software-tied access
- →Stand up a SoftwareONE-supported transition-to-operations model so the SAM Center of Excellence inherits a working platform on Day 27, not a half-built one
- →Hand the SOX 404 ITGC test partner a usable data feed plus control narratives by Day 25, ahead of audit fieldwork kickoff
Project management skills you'll build
The challenges you'll navigate
- •Q1 audit fieldwork deadline is a hard external date set by the SOX 404 test partner — any schedule slip becomes an audit-committee-visible failure, not just a project miss
- •Predecessor PM burned out and resigned; institutional knowledge gaps are unknown until handover documents are reviewed and gaps surface in execution
- •SoftwareONE SOW has open scope items — undefined obligations create commercial exposure and hide future change-request fights with Tom Reilly
- •Microsoft software audit notice arrived the day before project start — true-up exposure could land mid-project as a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar settlement and a SteerCo decision
- •Discovery may reveal substantially more unmanaged software than the spreadsheet-era SAM baseline shows — particularly Adobe and dev-tool subscriptions purchased on partner expense accounts
Technology & stakeholders
You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Atif Zaim (Chief Information Officer, KPMG US), Diana Marchetti (Director, IT PMO & Governance), Rachel Goldberg (Partner, Audit Quality & Risk Management), and more.
What you'll walk away with
A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need project management experience to start?
No. This simulation is built for aspiring and practicing project managers alike — you learn by doing. You make real decisions and get feedback, with no PMP or prior PM job required.
How long does this simulation take?
It runs over 27 days, roughly 24 minutes per day, covering the full project lifecycle from initiation to closure.
What will I learn?
You practice the core of project management — stakeholder management, budget and schedule control, risk, scope, and PMO governance — in the context of it asset management platform implementation in professional services / big-4 audit & advisory.
Is this based on the real KPMG US?
It's a realistic scenario inspired by KPMG US and the Professional Services / Big-4 Audit & Advisory sector. Details and names are fictionalized for training — it's a simulation, not a record of any actual project.
What do I get at the end?
A verified project completion plus the PMO deliverables you produced (charter, plan, SteerCo deck, closure) — proof of hands-on experience you can show employers.
Related simulations
Ready to gain real PM experience?
Run KPMG US's it asset management platform implementation and 48+ more enterprise simulations.
See plans & start